Est Quod Est

Monday, March 2, 2015

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak to Congress tomorrow to discuss the threat a nuclear-armed Iran would pose to Israel, the region and the world. But in a different historical timeline, he might not have been, putting his energies into military cleanup actions closer to home instead.

The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma’an has cited a Kuwaiti
newspaper report Saturday, that US President Barack Obama thwarted an
Israeli military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2014 by
threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their
targets in Iran.

According to Al-Jarida, the Netanyahu government took the
decision to strike Iran some time in 2014 soon after Israel had
discovered the United States and Iran had been involved in secret talks
over Iran’s nuclear program and were about to sign an agreement in that
regard behind Israel's back.

The report claimed that an unnamed Israeli minister who has good ties
with the US administration revealed the attack plan to Secretary of
State John Kerry, and that Obama then threatened to shoot down the
Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran.

I obviously can't confirm or document what Obama actually did or didn't tell Netanyahu, but the paper goes on to cite Zbigniew Brzezinski as the original source of the option, based on an interview he gave The Daily Beast back in 2009:

Former US diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski, who enthusiastically campaigned for Obama in 2008, called on him to shoot down Israeli
planes if they attack Iran. “They have to fly over our airspace in
Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?” said the former national security advisor to former President Jimmy Carter in an interview with the Daily Beast.

“We have to be serious about denying them that right,” he said. “If
they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of
turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a 'Liberty'
in reverse.’"

Denying America's oldest ally in the Middle East the opportunity to preemptively defend itself against an existential nuclear threat not only to its own survival but but also to setting off a region-wide nuclear arms race, on the pain of physically shooting down its Air Force (and who would prevail there?) seems to me an awfully high price to pay for some watery thin porridge of Obama's personal legacy deal with Iran as currently constituted.

But a true national leader - unlike what we have - does what he has to do, so tomorrow Netanyahu will be in Washington, hat in hand, trying to convince Congress simply to strengthen sanctions against Iran rather than giving them the nuclear store.

While others are retreating to cozy corners to masturbate psychologically and rhetorically, conservatives might be interested in at least two things that will decide how their lives will be shaped if they defer on making those decisions themselves instead.

Near term, King v. Burwell goes to oral argument before SCOTUS March 4 - 48 hours from now. If King wins, Obamacare immediately becomes a failed state, like Libya and Somalia. That structural vacuum will demand filling, and the first and loudest call will be for Republicans to immediately replace what was lost - exactly as it was before.

Doing nothing is not an adult option. However, there are contingency plans in the wings. Legislation to enact the best consensus option had better be ready to drop in June or whenever SCOTUS finally rules, or Republicans can probably expect a growing public PR beating to begin on both legislative and presidential fronts heading toward November, 2016.

- - - - -

If Republicans don't want to look up unexpectedly one day to find this smiling face lecturing them from behind the presidential seal, it's long past time to get vaccinated. Why Ben Carson has become the alternative boyfriend while the far more intellectually and politically estimable - and electable - Shelby Steele is not being groomed and being made ready for the inevitable ethnographic face off escapes me entirely.

Sooner or later, Republicans are going to be forced to deal a serious presidential alternative to the "old white men" slur, and the time to recognize that is before sooner gets here.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Check this out: a guy is pimping his book about another book about what happens after death and his event announcement give a nod to the famous pornographic title Debbie Does Dallas. Then the next day we find out in a comment to another book-pimping post that this guy's publisher, Regan Arts, has (somehow) pulled in a winner of a book review from Kirkus for another of its books described as a "the sex-drenched memoir" of a famous Las Vegas pimp, Dennis Hof. The memoir prominently features one of Hof's friends, Ron Jeremy, a legendary adult film actor who incidentally did his stick—I mean his shtick—in all three of the Debbie Does Dallas sequel films. Interesting....

Everyone does know that cover of the book about another book about what happens after death has undergone a revision since the original cover, don't they? I think the new one might sell better—it features nudity. Regan Arts knows their business.

Friday, February 27, 2015

You might not be able to explain the Benedict Option to all your friends because, let's face it, at heart understanding the Benedict Option requires a consciousness raised to that level which can grasp how a bear, a snake, a kangaroo, a fish, and a Buick are all the same thing. Those with their consciousness already raised to a high enough level immediately "get it" and intuitively grasp how all these things are the same: they're all something.

But this is hard for people of lesser intelligence to "get", so let me try to explain so that you, too, can understand the emperorograph that is the true Benedict Option rather than one of those mistaken or deliberately falsified representations enemies of the Benedict Option are likely to promulgate.

The Benedict Option is like a bear but it isn't a bear and, because it has fur, it's also like a kangaroo, but of course it isn't a kangaroo either, silly, and because, like a kangaroo, it has a flexible, sinuous tail it's also like a snake, but of course, and please stop being so obtuse here, because it has those things sticking out of the bigger middle part of it, it's very much like a fish as well, but of course as we know - right, it isn't a fish - but it is like a Buick because, like a bear, it's really big and heavy.

So, having raised our consciousness to this point, what do we all now understand about the Benedict Option? Right, the Benedict Option is something. Something. NotNothing. Not the emptiness between the stars, which really isn't empty anyway, nor the rampant nihilism of doubting things that fall out of the hole in the front of my face, but something. Important. Something.

Okay, for those of you folks out there who might be slowly banging a cooking pot against the side of your head or whose education might amount to something different from four whole years of college plus a real journalism degree, let's go through the Benedict Option one more time. The Benedict Option is like a Buick. Why? Right, because it's big and heavy like a bear, which has openings on both ends, like fish, which has those things sticking out from that middle part like, what? Right, a kangaroo, which has a tail which reminds us of a snake.

Like I said, not everyone can "get it", and if you're now one of the ones who does, you can justifiably pat yourself on the back and stop worrying what that person down the hall really thinks about you or why that girl laughed at you that time. Because you get it, and that makes you special.

And don't let anyone tell you any differently or try to make you question your understanding of the Benedict Option as I've just explained it to you, because that's exactly how you can detect the corrosive effects of our nihilistic postmodern culture trying to insinuate itself into the very heart of your life: it tries to get you to doubt me and the importance and value of the Benedict Option as I've just explained it to you.

Now, slowly, patiently, go forth and explain this to your friends just as I have for you and put them on notice that soon there will be a book out, with pictures, explaining just what you heard here in exquisite 4-color separation detail. Preordering details as I get them.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

I've probably let it seep out that I'm not a big fan of whiners, particularly when it comes to Christianity and conservatism, both of which, it seems to me, should provoke us to more noble postures.

One expression of this that periodically irritates me is when I hear someone say that at the end of the day we can't be too hard on Rod Dreher - the archetype God studied when designing the weasel - because he stands up for us where we can't. Bullshit. Here's a prime example of just the opposite.

Today Dreher has a post up about a cop in Salt Lake City who found himself in some sort of trouble with his superiors for not marching in some sort of gay parade. Dreher's solution? Naturally, his Benedict Option - whatever that really is.

This fall, a major university is planning a conference on the Benedict Option, as Christians and conservatives are considering the idea more seriously. I am planning a book about it, as a contribution to the public debate.

While the finer points of that LEO's obligations as an officer under orders remain unresolved, the main thing, the only thing, is that the officer chose to resign rather than fighting for his rights himself based on the abundance of rights and resources he already had available.

Dreher would encourage more to do the same, in the guise of a fatalistic vision of inevitable persecution, because it serves his personal bottom line.

One of Dreher's regular conservative commenters, Glaivester, comes to similar, if not quite as venally motivated, conclusions.

If you need a self-dealing weasel like Dreher to save you rather than standing up for yourself, what sort of Christianity or conservatism, exactly, do you represent that is really worth saving?

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

A friend in Pittsburgh, married now, related to me the story of how he received a phone call from another bachelor while viewing B&B on 7/15/1994. "Are you seeing this? Are you seeing this!?" his friend frenetically inquired. That was the Cornholio episode. It was pretty funny, I admit.

Hugh Hewitt irritates me on many occasions but he is a master at what he does. He is basically a photographer of sorts; he is really good at showing what is there. Once Corn gets flustered he is toast. Flustered, flummoxed, flushed.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Dreher gets paid for as many hits which correct him as for those if he creates something of value, so the difference between his own farts and an opera are pretty much moot to him.Why not just phone it in as he does above?

By comparison, here's what being bright, acute, diligent and incisive looks like:

Of course, being obtusely wrong has long been a mainstay of Dreher's schtick anyway. When you're paid in blog hits rather than the value of the content you produce, you say "Oranges are blue!", and dozens of college sophomores immediately fight for the chance to tell you, "Nuh unh!". Civilly, of course. So I guess except for comparisons like this, how would anyone really ever tell the difference?

Being profitably lazy and stupid for a living. Nice work if you can get it.

The Fight Against Evil

"It is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world. We should seek a final end of this menace, even if we do not hope to make one." -- Gandalf the Wizard, The Fellowship of the Ring